§ Mr. McCabeTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what assessment he has made of the CBI's report on work placements, with particular reference to its findings that students found work placements grim, boring and unrelated to the curriculum. [107924]
§ Mr. Miliband[holding answer 8 April 2003]: There has been no recent report by the CBI on work experience placements, but we are aware of the CBI's views on the quality of these. Independent evaluations carried out for the Department point to the need for improvements of practice in some schools and businesses. We are taking steps to promote improvements in the context of our plans to make work-related learning a statutory requirement for all Key Stage 4 pupils from 2004–05, and to enable them all to have at least two weeks of high quality work experience.